Posts Tagged ‘1973’

At one time or another, you’ve sat around with your friends and jabbered about the mythical “composite” motorcycle. You know the one -it’ got the peak horsepower of a breathed·on Pursang, combined with the low-end grunt of a Stiletto. It`s got the plush forks of a Maico, turns like a CZ and tracks like a cut-frame Husky. It weighs less than a good 250 and has the punch of a 400. And the best part-you don’t have to do anything to the bike. just ride it like it was a 350 Honda pseudo-scrambler.

We’ve all dreamed about that kind of a machine, but up until now, it never existed.

A quick look around at the competition mounts of the Staff of DIRT BIKE shows what has to be done to make a motorcycle “right” for competition. No one but a fool rides a Maico in stock trim. Different filters, rims and assorted bozos are a must for the serious rider. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow be unto the 125 class buyer. It is now officially Decision Time. We’ll take it for granted that you want to win, and you want to spend as little as you have in order to wn (or do reasonably well) in that class.

Up until now, you’ve been faced with several alternatives, let’s examine a few of them in retrospect Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody jabbers on and on about changing the powerband of a motorcycle engine. The scrambles boys want a bundle on top; the MX-ers want a nice, even spread.

Sooo, motors got ported, polished, reeded, drilled, stuffed, files, tampered, folded, spindled and mutilated in the never ending quest for the prefect powerband.

However, only one path has been found to that elusive Perfect Power-band: cubic inches. Or even better, cubic feet.

Yup. You can achieve bottom end, top end and even middle end, if the motor has a big cnough hole in it (and a piston to fit that hole).

Naturally, whenever we get a big-incher in for a test, we expect to be greeted by power. Buckets of power all over the place, Power from idle to peak revs. We expect to put the bike in top gear and go boom-boom-boom down thc road, digging trenches as thc engine barely turns ovcr.

A short while ago, Yamaha dropped off one of their new 500cc bikes at our offices. And promptly blew our preconveived notions about big-inch power right out of the lunch box. Read the rest of this entry »